It became necessary then for Rojas to give up the old farm that had been in the family for several generations, and that was worth several millions. When the three mortgages on it had been paid and his other debts settled there was nothing for Rojas to do but strike out into the less civilized parts of the Argentine. When money was more plentiful he had bought a section in Rio Negro as a speculation, and to this property, which he had never seen, he now betook himself.
Farming is the last resort of many a man who has dissipated his fortune. In spite of entire ignorance of the principles, to say nothing of the practice, of agriculture, the man who has failed in other occupations expects to make a success of this most laborious and difficult of professions. Rojas, accustomed to a life of spending, believed that by transferring himself to Rio Negro he would be able to accomplish this miracle. He had never been willing to bother with the management of the farm near Buenos Aires, with its rich pasture lands capable of supporting thousands of steers. Yet now he was planning to lead the rough life of the pioneer farmer, who must conquer the wilderness if he is to live. What his ancestors had done in the rich lands near Buenos Aires, where rains are opportune, he now had to do under the brazen skies of Patagonia that rarely, throughout the whole length of the year, let more than a few drops fall on the parched prairie.
But the erstwhile millionaire bore his misfortune with immense dignity. He was a man of fifty or thereabouts, somewhat short in stature, with a nose of roman proportions, and a beard streaked with white. In the midst of his rustic surroundings he preserved something of the manners acquired by contact with a more polished society. As they said at the settlement up at the dam, it didn’t matter how Rojas dressed, you could always tell he had been born a gentleman. He always wore high boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and a poncho, and in his right hand carried a revenque or small whip.
The buildings on his ranch were of a most modest sort. They had been put up as temporary structures in the hope that a turn for the better in his fortunes would soon make it possible to improve them. But, as so often happens in rustic settlements, these makeshift buildings were destined to last even longer than some of those erected with great care as permanent ones.
Over the walls of baked brick, with no other supports, or of simple adobe, rested the roof of corrugated tin. Inside, the partitions came only part way to the roof so that air could circulate freely through the entire building. The rooms did not contain much in the way of furniture. The one used by Don Carlos as office and reception room was adorned with a few rifles and the skins of some of the pumas he had shot in the surrounding plateau lands. It was the rancher’s custom to spend most of his time inspecting the corrals close by; but now and then he would start his horse off at a gallop for a sudden descent upon the peons at the other end of the ranch. One could never be sure that they weren’t sleeping while the cattle strayed....
The lunch hour had passed, and still Celinda had not come in. Her father every now and then looked impatiently out of the door. He had no fears whatever on her account. Ever since she had come to Rio Negro, at the age of eight, she had fairly lived on horseback, treating the Patagonian plateau lands as her playhouse.
“No one is going to take any chances with Celinda,” her father used to say proudly. “She’s a better shot with the revolver than I am. And besides, there is no two-legged or four-legged beast can get away from her when she has her lassoo along. My girl is as good as any man!”
In one of his pauses at the door he caught sight of her, approaching rapidly along the dark line that plain and sky make where they meet. The little mounted figure running along the horizon looked like a small tin horseman escaped from a box of toys.
In front of her pony ran a diminutive steer. And now the group, at full gallop, was growing larger with amazing rapidity. Anything moving on that immense plain appears to the bewildered eye, unaccustomed to the optical tricks of the desert, to change its size without going through the customary gradations.
The girl was close at hand now, uttering cowboy cries and cracking her lassoo in order to excite the steer to a quicker pace and rush him through the gate of the corral. With a great snort he dove through the opening in the wooden stakes, whereupon Mlle. Celinda dropped lightly from her horse and came to greet her father. But the latter, after kissing her cheek, held her away from him, and looked severely at her.